Literary fiction breaks many of the rules of conventional novel writing. But are there some rules that can’t be broken? Continue reading
Category Archives: Books
Does genre really matter?
When it comes to genre fiction, novel length is not an artistic choice. Why is this the case? Who decides how short is too short for a novel? Continue reading
Are memoirs fiction or nonfiction?
If memory is unreliable, is there really any difference between a novel and a memoir? The answer is more complicated than you might think. Continue reading
Can you solve these 19th-century math problems?
This is one of the easiest: “On Monday, I sold 3/7 of my pears; on Tuesday, I sold 16 more than 1/2 of the remainder, and had 20 pears left. How many had I at first?” Continue reading
How to sell a book
Could I market this book as the shortest novel ever written? Maybe. Here’s how. Continue reading
This is how you write a book dedication
Why I’ve never included a dedication in any of my books … and why I might start doing it from now on. Continue reading
What Laura Ingalls Wilder really ate
Two books claim to have the answer. But the answer each one presents is very different from the other. Continue reading
That time P.T. Barnum wrote a personal finance book
P.T. Barnum: king of ballyhoo, prince of humbugs, sultan of spin … giver of financial advice? As Barnum himself said, there’s a sucker born every minute. Continue reading
